


Ain't Slowing Down

by Adolescently



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Coming Out, F/F, Female Sam Winchester, Pre-Series, Queer Sam Winchester, Teenchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 19:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11562189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adolescently/pseuds/Adolescently
Summary: Girls are a problem.Not a problem in the way Dean thinks they are for her – she sees the worried looks he shoots her sometimes, but the truth is while girls can be catty, more often than not they’re sweet, friendly, welcoming. She doesn’t stay long enough to become a part of their high school drama.No, girls are a problem because she likes them.***Samantha Winchester, through adolescence and beyond. Because we all need more lesbian!Sam.





	Ain't Slowing Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is complete self-indulgence that I just spat out in like one sitting tonight. I didn't even proof read it cus I just don't care, y'all. LESBIAN SAM. I love her.
> 
> (I haven't written for this fandom in like six years where am I)

She’s fourteen when she figures out the truth, walking down the corridors of Truman High with Barry.

  
“That’s your brother? He’s so cool!” and Sam hmms absently, watching the way Amanda’s hair swings around her shoulders, admiring the way her face lights up with a big lip-glossed smile as she looks at Dean.

  
“He thinks so,” she agrees, and privately she thinks Amanda seems pretty cool too.

  
She tells Dean this, later, feels an odd twist in the pit of her stomach when her brother tells her, “She wants me to meet her parents, dude.” Sam tries to muster up a reaction – sympathy, she thinks? This requires sympathy, but she pictures Amanda, tall and blonde and bubbly and wonders why anyone would want to keep her at arm’s length.

  
They leave a few days later, Sam with her knuckles bruised and bloody from defending Barry’s honour. She thinks she saw Amanda in the crowd before she stormed away, tricks herself into believing there was a hint of admiration in those pretty eyes.

  
They’re gone hours later, halfway across the state, but Truman High stays with her for a long time.

  
***

  
Girls are a problem.

  
Not a problem in the way Dean thinks they are for her – she sees the worried looks he shoots her sometimes, but the truth is while girls can be catty, more often than not they’re sweet, friendly, welcoming. She doesn’t stay long enough to become a part of their high school drama.

  
No, girls are a problem because she _likes_ them.

  
She doesn’t get it at first. The girls on the soccer team with her are gorgeous, toned legs tanned from hours of training outside, flushed and smiling and friendly and why wouldn’t Sam want to be like them? Why wouldn’t she want to be with them, be one of them?

  
It isn’t until they win the league, until the whistle blows and it’s full time and they’re shrieking and laughing and hugging each other and Lucy Carmichael throws herself at Sam, arms around her neck, sweat glistening on her grinning face, that Sam thinks _oh_.

  
Lucy wraps her legs around Sam’s waist because Sam’s tall, even at fourteen so much taller than the other girls (taller than Dean, someday, Dad likes to say). The other girls pile on for a group hug, and Sam just stands there with her heart in her throat and thinks _how can one person be such a dumbass?_

  
She doesn’t want to be them. She wants to kiss them.

  
Dad and Dean are actually proud of her when she collects her trophy, gripping it so tight her knuckles turn white. The sweat on the back of her neck gives her goosebumps and she pretends that’s the only thing.

  
She kisses Lucy behind the bleachers, because they’re a fucking teenage cliché. Lucy’s giggling and blushing and saying, “I’ve never done anything like this before,” like Sam has any more idea what she’s doing. She runs a hand through Lucy’s hair – blonde, shiny, carefully styled in a way Sam never could manage – and presses her lips to hers. It’s tentative, shy, almost chaste. Sam licks her lips and pulls away, inches from Lucy’s wide green eyes, the tiny freckles on her nose. Was that okay? Did she do it right? Was it too dry? Too quick? She’s seen the way Dean kisses girls, maybe she should have-

  
-and then Lucy’s kissing her again and Sam feels the other girl’s tongue, pushing against her lips, soft and wet and gentle and she lets her lips part, forgets about what she should be doing and just feels.

  
They’re gone from that town within the week. Sam gets to say goodbye, but the hurt in Lucy’s eyes makes her wish she didn’t.

  
***

  
So. Girls are a problem.

  
Sam doesn’t put words to it, doesn’t know how to. Doesn’t want to. This is just one more in the long list of reasons why Sam is Not Normal, so she tucks it away in the back of her mind, squashes it down.

  
She doesn’t want to be the freak anymore.

  
***  
Some days Sam wonders what she’d be like if she’d known her mother. Dad and Dean don’t talk about her, not ever, so Sam is free to imagine. She pictures her smiling and hugging her and whispering her name (Sammy, and she doesn’t even mind it, not from her mom), smelling of anything that isn’t smoke. Somewhere safe and clean where being good at school is cause for pride, not concern.

  
What would she be like if she’d grown up with a mom? If she’d had someone to braid her hair instead of having it chopped to her shoulders because none of them knew how? If she’d had someone to explain her body to her before she’d woken up one morning, sheets soaked in blood, convinced she was dying? Would she still be like this? Maybe she was made to be broken right from the start.

  
The guilt eats her alive when she sees Dad, hunched over a bottle of whiskey come November, sees the way his eyes glisten and his shoulders shake. Dean disappears a lot, or throws himself into caring for Sam with a kind of wild abandon, forcing mac and cheese on her and giving her advice about boys and trying to help her with her homework when you don’t even understand algebra, Dean, God.

  
Dad and Dean miss Mary. Sam just misses having a mom.

  
***

  
Dad and Dean start leaving her alone for longer stretches. She’s fifteen, awkward and gangly in her still-growing body, and standing over Amy Pond in the library she feels like the most graceless creature alive. But Amy breaks into a smile, reaches out a slender leg to push the chair across from her away from the table, an invitation. Sam slumps into it.

  
“You’re the one who kicked those guys’ asses for me.”

  
Sam fumbles with her bag straps. “Yeah, I, uh, I guess.” She runs a hand through her hair, thinks about what Dean would say. “They totally deserved it.”

  
Amy giggles, pierces the hush that fills the library. Sam feels the librarian’s gaze on the back of her neck, panics for an instant that the wizened old lady behind the counter can read her mind. Still, the laughter bubbles up inside her and she can’t help but let it out.

  
Later they sit on Amy’s sofa and the bubbles in the beer sting the back of her throat, make her cough. Amy is radiant even in the dim light of her dingy living room. “We can be freaks together, Sam,” she says, so beautiful and so earnest. Sam would follow her anywhere. She swallows her heart down, twists her hands together in her lap, so desperate to reach out and touch her.

  
Everything goes to hell, that night, but Sam doesn’t ever forget Amy, doesn’t stop wishing she’d kissed her when she had the chance. She’s a freak in more ways than one.

  
***

  
Boys are the one thing she and Dad don’t fight about.

  
He looks at her strangely, some days when she comes home from school, chattering away to Dean, never once mentioning a single boy who’d caught her eye. Only ever her new friends, all female. Like she’d tell Dad even if there was a boy.

  
“I’m telling you, Sammy, that guy’s got the hots for you.”

  
A dark cemetery is so not the place to be having this conversation, but Dean gets bored digging up graves, and Dad tolerates it as long as Sam holds the shotgun steady, stays alert.

  
“It’s Sam. And I don’t even know the guy.”

  
“Aw, you sure, Sammy? Dude’s like a little puppy, the way he was trailing after you. It was kinda sad, actually.”

  
“Like you’d know, Dean! You don’t even go to school anymore, you’ve seen him, like, once.”

  
“Yeah, but I know the way guys think.” Another shovelful of dirt tossed over his shoulder. “I could see it all over his face. Dad knows what I’m talkin’ about, right Dad?”

  
Sam can’t help but glance back at that. Dad’s face, illuminated by the glow of the flashlight, wrinkles in disgust. “Come on, Dean, that’s your sister.”

  
Sam laughs, turns away to keep an eye out for their spirit, delighted to have Dad on her side for once. “ _Yeah_ , Dean.”

  
Dad must be in a rare good mood, because he keeps going as he slams the shovel back into the dirt. “Besides, we both know you’d be chasing the kid off with a shotgun the second he so much as looked at her. No one would be good enough for her.”

  
“What, Sammy?” Dean huffs out a laugh, leans on his shovel. “Nah, the kid’s welcome to her. Take her off our hands, ya know?”

  
“Uh, I’m standing right here!”

  
Dad laughs, and a smile tugs at her lips against her will.

  
“Aw, Sammy, don’t be like that. I’m sure there’s someone for you out there – maybe a nice wendigo, huh?” Dean flashes her a grin, starts back in with the shovel.

  
“Just remember who’s got the shotgun here, dude.”

  
Dean lets it go, after that. Still, the thought sits uneasily with her, lodged in her chest. They’ve noticed she isn’t normal. Now what does she do about it?

  
***

  
When Alex Bergenstein asks her on a date, two towns later, her first instinct is to say no. She stops herself, the rejection catching in her throat.

  
He’s not _ugly_. Objectively speaking, he’s pretty good-looking. Tall, tanned, muscular with a mop of dark brown hair and cheeks that crease into dimples when he smiles. He’s on the football team and has twice now abandoned them at lunch to sit with Sam and her copy of _Catcher in the Rye_.

  
She studies him, his face frozen into a hopeful smile, and thinks of Dean grilling her in the cemetery, Dad’s glances when he thinks she isn’t looking. She swallows, tucks a stand of hair behind her ear.

  
“Yeah, sure. Why not?” It’s not as though she doesn’t like boys, after all. It’s just that no one has caught her eye before now. That doesn’t mean no one will, though. Maybe she just hasn’t been looking closely enough.

  
Friday night, she stands in the bathroom of their latest apartment – they’ve been here for three weeks now, closing in on a month with no signs of leaving – and regards herself. She knows she’s not pretty, not in the way other girls are, but she’s- she’s okay, isn’t she?

  
Her hair is longer, these days, and a point of contention between her and Dad. Too long, he says, a danger on a hunt, but Sam keeps it tamed, ties it back in ponytails, sometimes braids it the way Becca Long showed her in the ninth grade. It’s darker than Dean’s, lighter than Dad’s, a rich brown that falls in soft curls. She tugs at it. Should she style it? She doesn’t really know how. She leans forward to inspect her skin, blessedly pimple-free. Her face is bare. They can’t afford makeup and Sam wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway - she’d look clownish if she even tried to apply lipstick. The thought makes a sick sense of shame curl in the pit of her stomach. She just can’t get this girl thing right. Still, she puts on her nicest clothes – the denim skirt they got from a thrift store is a little short on her these days, but still decent, and her legs are one thing about her that Sam knows look good.

Dean smirks at her as she heads for the door. “Hot date, Sammy?”

  
“It’s Sam.”

  
“Whatever. Got your keys? Knife?”

  
“Yeah, Dean.”

  
“Holy water?”

  
“ _Yes_.”

  
“Condom?”

  
“Dean!”

  
“What? He might not have one!”

  
“We’re just going to the movies, Dean!”

  
He grins that lecherous grin at her, raises his eyebrows. “Sure. The movies.”

  
“Jerk.” She shoves the door open.

  
“Have fun, bitch. Call me if you’re gonna be back late.”

  
The door swings shut behind her and Sam stands there for a moment feeling sick. How did she not think about this? Sex. That’s a thing that people have. Sex. Sex with a boy.

  
There’s a beep from the kerb and Sam glances up, sees Alex sitting there in his mom’s car, leaning out of the window grinning that dimpled smile at her. No time to panic. She’s a Winchester. Winchesters don’t panic. Sam takes a deep breath and puts on her game face, drops into the passenger seat beside Alex and smiles at him, hoping it doesn’t look as brittle as it feels.

  
They do go to the movies, despite what Dean thinks, but Sam can’t focus, can’t make her hands stop shaking. Alex’s arm snakes around her shoulder and her whole body tenses, but he just leans closer in the dark of the theatre, tucks a curl of her hair away from her face. She knows in that moment with a sudden, horrifying clarity, that he’s going to kiss her.

  
It’s not bad. That’s what makes it worse. Alex is a good kisser, there’s no getting away from it. Technically he’s perfect, probably gets a lot of practice looking like he does. Sam goes through the motions, mirrors the motions of his tongue, his lips.  
And yet. And yet she can’t wait for it to be over. There are no fireworks, there isn’t the spark of nervous excitement she felt with Lucy Carmichael, nor the ache she felt when she looked at Amy Pond.

  
The movie ends. They leave, Alex’s sweaty hand clasped in hers. She wants to go home, but more than that she wants to be normal. This is normal.

  
She lets him take her back to his empty house and they steal his brother’s beers from the fridge. Sam downs her first one like soda, needs the courage, is half way through her second before she knows it. The sour taste of cheap beer makes her think of Amy, gorgeous, let’s-be-freaks-together Amy, and she throws herself at Alex to shut that thought down real fucking quick. He catches her with strong hands, presses their lips together, slides a hand up her shirt and she squeezes her eyes closed and lets him. She lets him pull her into his lap, arm round her waist, and there’s something hard pressing up into her and- _oh_.

  
“What’s wrong?” He’s so concerned even as she pulls away, handsome face creased into a frown. She almost wants him to be angry, and hates herself for it. Nausea burns at the back of her throat.

  
“Nothing. I just, ah, I have to go. Uh, curfew, ya know?” She’s up and bolting for the door before he can say anything, halfway down the street before she feels safe, before it occurs to her to call Dean. He picks up on the second ring.

  
“What’s up, Sammy?”

  
Sam’s breath hitches and she’s horrified to feel tears pricking at the backs of her eyes. “Can you come pick me up?”

  
He’s instantly serious, and she hears the jingle of keys in the background. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  
“I’m fine. Just come get me, please?” She’s already burning hot with shame. She overreacted. She’s still overreacting, the first of her tears finally brimming over.

  
“Yeah, all right. Where are you?”

  
Dean doesn’t ask her anything until they’re back in the apartment, Sam silent, Dean vibrating with tension.

  
“All right, so whose ass am I kicking?”

  
She huffs out a laugh despite herself. “God, Dean. You think I couldn’t have kicked his ass myself?”

  
“Then what’s going on? Come on, kid, I picked you up, least you can do is talk to me.”

  
All Sam really wants to do is hide in her room, hide from her brother and herself and this life, but she wraps her arms around herself and sinks down onto the sofa.

  
“Sammy?” There’s a note of real concern in his voice now as he moves to sit beside her, gentle in a way he never is with anyone but her.

  
“I, uh…” She swipes at her face even though her tears dried before Dean ever picked her up. “I don’t…”

  
“Come on, dude, you’re freaking me out here. What happened?”

  
“Nothing happened!” She tugs at her hair and Dean places a hand over hers, stilling her. His eyes are wide and focused on her, a small frown tugging at his eyebrows, and all of a sudden the weight is too much to carry on her own. “I think, um. I don’t think I like guys.”

  
“Jeez, was he that bad? There’s plenty of other-“

  
“I like girls.”

  
There’s silence for a moment, then, “Huh.” She can’t look at him, stares down at her hands, digging into them with her nails. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about you getting pregnant.”

  
“Dean!”

  
“What? Oh, come on, Sammy, you didn’t seriously think I’d care?” It’s incredible, the way he can make her feel so small and yet so relieved. “We hunt monsters for a living, dude.” And she hasn’t quite recovered enough to make a quip about that, just yet, how it isn’t much of a living, so she just laughs, a little bewildered.

  
“I don’t know. It’s just- it’s not normal, is it?”

  
The smile drops from her brother’s face. “Look, Sammy, I know how much you care about all this normal shit, all right? Now normally I’d tell you to screw normal, but, well. This is probably the least freaky thing about you, ya know?” Sam isn’t quite sure how to take that, until he adds, “I mean, you’re sixteen years old and like, six feet tall. _That’s_ freaky. It’s a good thing you like girls, man, ‘cause I’m telling you, you’re too tall for the dudes.”

  
She’s really laughing at that, smacks him on the arm. “You’re such a jerk!” _Thanks, Dean_.

  
“Whatever, bitch.” _No problem_. He straightens up, a gleam in his eye. “Wait, so what happened with that guy tonight?”

  
And Sam buries her face in her hands and groans. “It was awful!” But she tells him everything anyway, doesn’t even care that he laughs in her face.

  
“Dude, you told him you had a curfew! You know it’s like, nine-thirty, right?”

  
“I didn’t know what to tell him! I couldn’t just bust out the old, ‘Sorry, turns out I like girls’, ya know?” She can’t stop laughing, though, still smiling hours later when she goes to sleep.

  
She’s still not normal, but she feels like maybe now she can be.

  
***

  
Still, she doesn’t put the words to it until Stanford, until Jessica. She likes girls, sure. She’s kissed a few, even had a girlfriend for a little while in junior year, but she doesn’t really talk about it. John doesn’t even know, will maybe never know now that she’s out of his life forever. Her chest aches a little at the thought.

  
Stanford is freedom. A new her. Stable, safe, happy. She makes friends, goes to classes, takes a part-time job at the campus coffee shop.

  
Jessica comes into her life so slowly she doesn’t notice it at first. She’s like water the way she moves to fill the cracks in Sam’s life, showing up at the coffee shop with a smile after classes, dropping notes as she passes in the library, smirking at her over the pool table at the bar they snuck into (if there’s one lesson she keeps from John, it’s that a fake ID and a pretty face will get you everywhere). Still, Sam doesn’t let herself hope. She knows Jessica just broke up with her boyfriend. Jessica likes guys. So Sam keeps her distance. Does her homework, lifts weights with Jason and Brady, works her shift at the coffee shop. Doesn’t think about long blonde curls, the tanned strip of skin between shirt and jeans, bright green eyes and a blinding smile, the gentle curve of her breasts, the way she would fit so perfectly in Sam’s arms and oh _fuck_. She’s in trouble. Times like this she wishes she could call Dean.

  
No one really knows a lot about Sam, is the thing. She doesn’t share. So when Brady asks if she wants to go on a date with his friend Kyle from soccer, it’s not really fair of her to laugh. And keep laughing.

  
When she finally gets a breath out to say, “Sorry, man, I just- I like girls, ya know?”

Brady goes white. “Oh,” he says, visibly working for composure. “That’s cool. That you- that you’re a- you know, a-"

  
The irritation that flairs isn’t really justified, seeing as Sam can’t say it either, but suddenly she can, “A lesbian, Brady. Yeah.”

  
“Oh!” And Sam glances over her shoulder to see Jessica, a tray of beers in her hand, frozen.

  
Sam flushes. “Hey, Jess.”

  
“Sorry, sorry.” Jessica hurries the last few feet, slams the tray down on the table. Beer splashes over onto the already sticky surface, but Sam can’t tear her eyes away from Jessica. What the fuck has she just done?

  
Brady leers at her the rest of the night, glances between her and Jessica and waggles his eyebrows, and Sam kind of wants to punch him. She heads out early, citing her eight am lecture, and the cool night air is soothing. She wraps her arms around herself and starts to walk, feeling stupid for reasons she can’t quite articulate.

  
“Sam?”

  
She turns at Jessica’s voice, bone-weary at the sight of her. “Hey, Jess.”

  
“Hey, look, I’m sorry if I was rude earlier. I just- it surprised me, you know? The lesbian thing.”

  
“Uh, yeah, I know it’s kind of weird. I hope it’s not a problem or anything.” She’s been here before, been shot down before. Not everyone’s cool with it. Not everyone’s Dean. She hates that she lets herself forget that so easily.

  
“What?” Jessica steps closer, into her space. She’s nearly a foot shorter than Sam, all curves. “No! That’s not what I meant! You really thought-“ but she doesn’t finish the thought, soft hands grabbing Sam’s face, pulling her down, pressing their lips together. It’s too wet and it tastes of beer and the height difference makes her neck ache but it’s kind of the best kiss Sam’s ever had, and she pulls her closer and doesn’t ever want to let go.

  
She doesn’t let go, not until Dean’s dragging her away, ash and smoke choking her and burning her lungs, come on Sammy, she’s gone-

  
Normal was never going to happen.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me a comment if you liked it! Or if you didn't, even. LET ME HAVE IT


End file.
